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Late this afternoon, the Police and BDF had a press conference to discuss the wider issues surrounding the grenade attack. The BDF bomb expert also discussed the specifics of the grenade, revealing that it is part of that same stock of grenades that went missing from the British Army Training Support Unit’s stock in 2004.

David Jones, BDF Bomb Expert
“I visited the location where the seat of the explosion took place. I noticed the small crater in the yard on Kraal Road. I also noticed several fragments that were embedded in the concrete wall, the fence besides the concrete building as well, there were several fragments embedded. Based on this it was obvious that it was a high explosive fragmentation grenade. The exact type I wasn’t sure of at the time but I was able to eventually find the safety pin last night, sometime close to 11 last night, and we were unable to find what I really needed which was the fly off lever to conclusively determine what type of grenade it was.

Back out on the scene this morning at about 5:30 we started to search again with officers from the Scenes of Crime and Police Department and we did find the fly-off lever. On inspection of the fly-off lever I noticed it was the same type that was used at the Comptroller of Custom’s residence, it was a similar type of grenade that was thrown in front of the KHMH as well. So the grenade is of British origin.

It is a defensive grenade which means there is more lethality to this type of grenade. Had this grenade not landed inside the yard itself, had it been outside on the street, there would have been more casualties. Thankfully it landed in a confined area and so most of the blast was confined to the confines of the fence and actual concrete fence itself.

There were two persons inside the yard prior to the grenade being thrown. The grenade was thrown from an area, the person actually walked from Rivero Street into a yard adjacent to where the building was. From behind a fence the grenade was thrown over a wooden house and then on top of a zinc shop. Beside that zinc shop it rolled over into the yard where it fell. There were two persons inside that yard and when the grenade fell, the report I got from one of the victims that was hit, the fellow who passed away, Mr. Rudolph Flowers, shouted what is that. The other fellow who is Mr. Barrow shouted it is a grenade and he started running to the other end of the fence, trying to get away. The grenade immediately went off after he started running.

The fellow who passed away got the brunt of the blast. There were fragments embedded in his side, the lower ribcage, six inches under the armpit. He passed away probably immediately on the spot. He either died from the injury from the wound that went into his body or the blast effect from the grenade because the blast from a grenade can through your mouth or your nose and then penetrate inside the body, rupture the lungs, and then cause internal bleeding. So those are the two possible ways that he got his fatal injury.

The other fellow in the motion of running he got hit in the back, the lower back, the thigh and one of his feet. The fragment from the grenade penetrated his foot. The third fellow who got hit, Mr. Williams, he was on the other side of the street. There was a portion of wood and zinc that formed part of the fence that wasn’t concrete, the fragment actually penetrated the wood and zinc and then hit him across the street and so the fragments hit him inside the hand.”

This morning, police commanders met to discuss the response to the grenade attack and after that, the prime minister and the ministry of national security met with key security personnel including police commanders and gang intervention specialists.